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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
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TALK ABOUT MOVIES
June 2006
THE RED VIOLIN
Directed by Francois Girard. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Carlo Cecchi, Jason Fleming, et al. Canada / Italy / UK, French / English / Italian / Mandarin / German, Color, 131 minutes, 1998. Available at Kensington Video.
Ernie: When the violin went to China, it survived the iconoclasm of the cultural revolution. Great art cannot be destroyed. Nor can it be owned. It exists in the hearts of men. That's part of why Charles Morritz, the hunter of rare violins, can't stand to see this perfect expression of art sold at auction.
Matthew: Morritz asks, "What do you do when that perfect thing you've searched for all your life just comes along?" At first, it seems like he's planning to make it his own, but that's not it. He wants to pass it along, keep it going. The violin has been this persistent beauty that's endured through the centuries. Most of the people who bid on the violin wanted it for its historical value. Whether Morritz's action was right or wrong, it was in keeping with the life of the violin.
Ernie: All the bidders have some claim. Ming wants it because he was part of the reason it got lost (and saved) in China. The maestro is the descendant of the gypsies who played it for generations. The Edward Pope foundation wants it because Pope made the most beautiful music on it. The monks want it because they were its first owners.
Matthew: But they're all grasping at the shadows of the past. Morritz carries it forward, to live in the hands of a new violinist.
* * *
Matthew: The violin took on the humors of the maker's wife, and it continued to form a kind of magical intimacy with its owners. It was the boy's heart -- his own weak heart faltered when he wasn't allowed to sleep with it, and failed when he thought he might lose it. It was Pope's lover -- we even get a shot of him in bed with it, naked, while Victoria is away and he is lamenting that the music is disappearing, that something has been lost. It's no accident that she shoots the violin and not Pope when she discovers his infidelity. He took up with another woman to regain his musical inspiration. And for Xiang Pei, it's her connection to the past, her identity before she had to sacrifice her personality to the state.